Praise for our creator and sustainer

Paul Luckraft reviews ‘A Pocket Guide to Climate Change’ by Answers in Genesis (2018)

We can forecast the Beast from the East...but can we recognise the signs of the times?

The weather forecasters did a good job warning us of the approach of the ‘Beast from the East’. Of course, it did not prevent many roads being closed, cars getting stuck and accidents happening: but at least we were warned in advance so that we could take precautions or change our travel plans. But how good are Christian preachers in giving forewarning to people of what is likely to happen in the nation?

Where Are Church Leaders?

There is increasing anger in the Brexit debate – people are getting fed up with constant bickering among politicians and news programmes swamped with journalists arguing among themselves – always emphasising the bad news and stirring up controversy and confusion.

Now the EU has put forward their plan, which would require Northern Ireland to stay in the European Union and would break up the United Kingdom – wilfully adding to the problems facing our negotiators and stirring divisions among Brits in the hope of causing the Government to fall and, in the resulting chaos, the decision to leave the European Union will be reversed.

The EU leaders are aided and abetted by people like Tony Blair, George Soros, John Major, and many others, who want to keep us tied into the oppressive (demonic?) institutions of the EU and their vision of an atheist, secular humanist world empire.

But where is the voice of the Church? Why do we not hear Christian preachers thundering from their pulpits about the spiritual forces of evil that are creating chaos and confusion? Could it be that they are like the Pharisees and Sadducees who came to Jesus asking for a miraculous sign? He replied,

When evening comes, you say, “It will be fair weather, for the sky is red”, and in the morning, “Today it will be stormy for the sky is red and overcast.” You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times! (Matt 16:2-3).

The weather forecasters were able to warn us of the ‘Beast from the East’ – but where are the Christian preachers able to warn about what is coming to the nation?

Wrong Theology?

Could it be that our Church leaders are unable to discern the signs of the times because they’ve got their biblical theology all wrong? Earlier this week I received an email from a minister of a London church reporting a message he had given to his congregation promising them a great outpouring of the Holy Spirit and of supernatural power to overcome the enemies of Christ because we are now in the last days leading up to the coming of Jesus!

I was horrified to read this because it is a distortion of the truth! The great shaking of the nations may lead many to give their lives to God but there is no promise that Christians will rule the world. In fact, the first words of Jesus on the subject were warnings about deception!

He also said that in the last days, nation will rise against nation, there will be an increase of wickedness with persecution and betrayal of believers, with false prophets and teachers deceiving the people and many turning away from the faith (see Matthew 24).

Isn’t this what we are seeing today? There are plenty of signs of growing tension between the nations as well as the terrible wars in Syria, Yemen, Afghanistan, Ukraine, Nigeria, Myanmar, South Sudan and many more places around the world, where people are being slaughtered and vast numbers of refugees are on the move.

Could it be that our Church leaders are unable to discern the signs of the times because they’ve got their biblical theology all wrong?

Jesus also said that the Gospel of the Kingdom will be preached in all the world - and this is also undoubtedly happening today, despite all the persecution of believers and the falling away from the faith in the Western nations. The Church worldwide is growing at a faster rate than ever before in history, with vast numbers of new believers in China, South Korea, the Philippines, Indonesia, Africa and in South America.

In fact, the Gospel is even growing in the Middle East where Christians are evangelising in the refugee camps and Jesus is appearing to Arabs in dreams and visions, leading to increasing numbers of secret believers among the Muslims.

These are amazing days if we are willing to recognise the signs of the times!

Heresy in the Church

But Jesus also warned about the love of many growing cold. Peter actually says that judgment will begin with the family of God (1 Pet 4:17). And he warns about false teachers coming into the Church and “secretly introducing destructive heresies, even denying the Sovereign Lord” (2 Pet 2:1).

Christians should be on their guard against false teachings and destructive heresies that sound so attractive and appealing – promising great power to perform miracles and heal the sick. Popular prophecies today are promising that Christians are going to take control of broadcasting and TV and spread the Gospel through the mighty power they will exercise, which will enable them to take control of the Government and enforce righteous laws which will prepare the way for the Kingdom of God.

They believe that once Christians have established the Kingdom of God on earth, Jesus will return and they will present the Kingdom to him. This is the teaching variously known as, ‘Kingdom Now’ or ‘Dominionism’ or ‘Latter Rain’. But this teaching is not in the Bible!

Beware!

Many Christians in the Western nations, especially in the USA and in Britain, are embracing this dangerous false teaching. It is dangerous because Christians who imbibe these beliefs are preparing for the wrong things.

Dominionism is dangerous because Christians who imbibe these beliefs are preparing for the wrong things.

It’s like if the weather forecasters, instead of warning us that the ‘Beast from the East’ would bring snow, promised sunshine and warm temperatures so that we put on light clothing and suntan lotion instead of getting out our wellies and shovels!

The message to Christians should be, “Beware of deception!” Read your Bible and see what Jesus and the Apostles said about the days leading up to the second coming of Jesus. Lift up your heads and rejoice even in the dark days when our faith is severely tested! Maranatha! Come quickly Lord!

What do we learn about God from the instances in Scripture where he uses the weather as a prophetic sign?

The prophets of the Old Testament believed that Yahweh, the God they served, was in absolute control of the weather - that good weather was a sign of his approval and that unfavourable weather was his way of reproving his often disobedient children and of keeping them in check (Deut 28:15, 22-23; Amos 4:7-8).

The prophets delighted to point out Yahweh's superiority over the idols and rain-gods whose help the children of Israel were only too prone to enlist (Jer 10:11-13). Typical of this was the stinging sarcasm addressed to the prophets of Baal by Elijah on Mount Carmel after their total failure (1 Kings 18:26-29).

The prophets believed that Yahweh was in absolute control of the weather – and delighted to point out his superiority over idols and rain-gods.

God is Reliable and is to be Praised

After the flood in the days of Noah, God made a promise that he would be man's faithful provider so long as the world went on. "As long as the earth endures, seed-time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease" (Gen 8:22). Hundreds of years later Paul addressed a crowd at Lystra and sought to turn them from their errors to the true God who had borne witness to himself by constantly supplying them with rain. crops and food. "He has not left himself without witness. He has shown kindness by giving you rain from heaven and crops in their season. he provides you with plenty of food" (Acts 14:17).

Earlier on, Joel had encouraged his hearers to rejoice in the Lord who had given them "both autumn and spring rains" (Joel 2:23). Both the 'former' and the 'latter' rains were essential to produce good crops in Israel. The autumn rain was necessary in order to facilitate sowing and the spring rain. which fell in March or April, was important to swell the grain then approaching maturity.

The prophet went on to say "You will have plenty to eat. and You will praise the name of the Lord your God" (Joel 2:26). Even during the wilderness wanderings lasting 40 years God was faithful in providing manna, in a situation in which it was impossible to grow crops. "Each morning everyone gathered as much as he needed". It is characteristic of Yahweh that he provided them with plenty (Ex 16:21; Ps 78:23-25).

After the flood, God promised that he would be man's faithful provider 'as long as the earth endures'.

Yahweh is the True God and is to be Obeyed

There were many Baals (or Baalim), Canaanite storm and fertility gods, in the time of Elijah. The Baal favoured by Israel's king Ahab was Melqart, the seat of whose worship was in Tyre, the city from which Ahab's wicked wife, Jezebel, came. She had introduced Baal worship into Israel and had at least 450 prophets working to eliminate the worship of Yahweh, the true God.

In order to bring the people back to worship the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the prophet Elijah was to inform King Ahab that for the next few years there would be neither dew nor rain (1 Kings 17:1). It is significant that the prophet had to bring about this drought through prayer (James 5:17).

At the conclusion of a three-year period during which there had been no dew nor rain, Elijah arranged with the king a confrontation on Mount Carmel as the result of which the prophets of Baal were disgraced and the Israelites were obliged to acknowledge that Yahweh was the real God. Once the forces of Baalim were overthrown the land could again enjoy the rain from heaven, but not before Elijah had prayed persistently until "a small cloud the size of a man's hand" provided him with evidence that rain was on its way (1 Kings 18:19. 38, 41-46).

It is significant that the drought inflicted upon Ahab was brought about by prayer and ended by prayer.

The prophet Moses had previously explained to God's people that the gift to them of good weather was conditional upon their obedience:

If you fully obey the Lord your God and carefully follow all his commands...all these blessings will come upon you...The Lord will open the heavens, the storehouse of his bounty, to send rain on your land in season...However, if you do not obey the Lord your God...the sky over your head will be bronze. the ground beneath you iron (Deut 28:1-2, 12, 15, 23).

God is Sovereign and Claims the Right to Control the Weather

God's people have always had to come to terms with the fact that Yahweh exercises absolute authority over the weather. The position is made clear in the words of Psalm 135:6-7: "The Lord does whatever pleases him, in the heavens and on the earth...he makes clouds rise from the ends of the earth; he sends lightning with the rain and brings out the wind from his storehouses".

In the interview Nicodemus had with Jesus, he was told "The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going" (John 3:8). Clearly Jesus is saying that the wind blows where God pleases, and that God is in sovereign control, whether he is referring to the weather in the natural world or the work of regeneration in the human spirit.

There is an element of mystery in the weather even to today's scientifically trained weather-forecasters, as was evident in the hurricane which unexpectedly hit the south of England in October 1987. We must not grumble at the weather God sends nor be like the wife of Job, who suggested that he should curse God. Rather we should follow Job's advice, "Shall we indeed accept good from God and not accept adversity?" (Job 2:10 NASV). After all is said and done, he does know best.

God's people have always had to come to terms with the fact that Yahweh exercises absolute sovereignty over the weather.

God is the Source of 'Natural Disasters'

On the day when David had been delivered from all his enemies he was inspired to sing about the weapons in God's armoury that had been used to bring about his deliverance, weapons we call 'natural disasters':

The earth trembled and quaked, the foundations of the heavens shook: they trembled because he was angry...Out of the brightness of his presence bolts of lightning blazed forth. The Lord thundered from heaven. He shot arrows and scattered the enemies, bolts of lightning and routed them. (2 Sam 22:1, 8, 13, 14, 15)

Earlier in their history Yahweh had made use of hailstones in softening up the hearts of Pharaoh and his princes to let the children of Israel leave Egypt. Exodus 9:24 records that they accompanied the worst storm in all the land of Egypt since it had become a nation.

The last-but-one plague was that of darkness. God said to Moses: "Stretch out your hand towards the sky so that darkness will spread over Egypt - darkness that can be felt. So...total darkness covered all Egypt for three days" (Ex 10:21-22). This was a particularly disconcerting event for the Egyptians because their god - the sun god Ra - was seen to be powerless to dispel the darkness. God's selectivity and special care for his children is seen in the fact that. although all Egypt was in darkness, "Yet all the Israelites had light in the places where they lived" (Ex 10:23).

Jeremiah was commanded to announce that disaster was coming to Jerusalem as well as to the nations surrounding her:

See. I am beginning to bring disaster on the city that bears my name, and will you indeed go unpunished?...The Lord will roar from on high; he will thunder from his holy dwelling...Look! Disaster is spreading from nation to nation: a mighty storm is rising from the ends of the earth. (Jer 25:29-32)

The prophets believed that God used the weapons in his arsenal to express his anger. This is not a popular idea in our day when so many seem to have exchanged the Almighty for the 'all¬matey'! Nahum expresses his understanding of God in these words:

His way is in the whirlwind and storm...the mountains quake before him and the hills melt away. The earth trembles at his presence, the world and all who live in it. Who can withstand his indignation? Who can endure his fierce anger? His wrath is poured out like fire; the rocks are shattered before him. (Nah 1:3.5,6)

It is against such a background that the prophet's message becomes so appropriate when he goes on to say. "The Lord is good, a refuge in times of trouble. He cares for those who trust in him" (Nah 1:7).

The prophets believed that God used the weapons in his arsenal to express his anger – not a popular idea today, when so many have exchanged the Almighty for the 'allmatey'!

God Uses the Weather and 'Natural Disasters' to Test His People

Job had to face a succession of disasters when marauding troops carried off his oxen and donkeys. Then his flocks and the shepherds with them were struck by lightning. Finally, the house where his children were feasting was demolished by a whirlwind, killing them all. Scripture records that "In all this. Job did not sin by charging God with wrongdoing" (Job 1:13-22).

As the story proceeds and the testing becomes increasingly painful and unpleasant, his friends tried to convince him that he must have sinned against God to suffer such a catalogue of disasters. But he had not sinned. God had allowed these terrible disasters in order to test his servant and to demonstrate Job's utter innocence to satan, the accuser. Prophets today need to be very careful when they so quickly point the accusing finger at those who are passing through severe testing.

Any study of God's power in creation quickly exposes our abysmal ignorance of natural forces and our virtual powerlessness:

Have you entered the storehouses of the snow or seen the storehouses of the hail, which I reserve for times of trouble, for days of war and battle? What is the way to the place where the lightning is dispersed, or the place where the east winds are scattered over the earth?...Can you raise your voice to the clouds and cover yourself with a flood of water? Do you send the lightning bolts on their way? Do they report to you, 'Here we are...?' do you have an arm like God's, and can your voice thunder like his? (Job 38:22-24; 34-35; 40:9).

God's Use of the Phenomena is Not Restricted to the Old Testament

When we study the great gospel events we find that they were marked by extraordinary happenings. While Jesus was dying on the cross between twelve noon and three in the afternoon "darkness came over the land...for the sun stopped shining" (Luke 23:44-45); again, "When Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, he gave up his spirit...the earth shook and the rocks split...when the centurion and those with him...saw the earthquake and all that happened, they were terrified, and exclaimed. 'Surely he was the son of God!'" (Matt 27:50-54).

When Jesus had been placed in a tomb "there was a violent earthquake, for an angel of the Lord came down from heaven and going to the tomb, rolled back the stone and sat on it" (Matt 28:2).

God's use of nature is not restricted to the Old Testament – in fact, the great gospel events are marked by extraordinary 'natural' happenings.

The Last Days Will Be Marked by Unusual Phenomena

Jesus revealed that before his second coming there would be "great earthquakes, famines and pestilences in various places and fearful events and great signs from heaven" (Luke 21:11). He said also that "the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from the sky, and the heavenly bodies will be shaken" (Matt 24:29). After these things (as Jesus told the high priest Caiaphas), "You will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven" (Matt 26:64).

These prophetic revelations help today's prophets to impress upon this generation the need to prepare, "For the coming of the Lord is drawing near" (James 5:8). In the book of the Revelation, the final prophetic word of scripture, there are warnings that must be passed on to our society; warnings of "flashes of lightning...peals of thunder and a severe earthquake, no earthquake like it had ever occurred since man had been on earth...from the sky huge hailstones of about a hundred pounds each fell upon men. And they cursed God on account of the plague of hail, because the plague was so terrible" (Rev 16:18, 21).

True prophets believe in a God who in his sovereign power controls the weather, 'natural disasters' and the coming judgment, a God of absolute purity and unquestioned authority who is to be feared. "They called to the mountains and the rocks, 'Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb!'" (Rev 6:16).

True prophets believe in a God who controls the weather, natural disasters and the coming judgment – a God of absolute authority who is to be feared, but who will one day dwell with his people.

True prophets proclaim a time when God will be with his people: "He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death, or mourning or crying or pain" (Rev 21:4). What a message prophets have to proclaim!